


Potential

by lokkanet



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Body Horror, Firebending & Firebenders, I promise this won't be as depressing as the end of Chapter 1 makes it sound, Spirit World shenanigans, Zuko and Toph are bros, but it's part of Azula's mental state
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24972247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokkanet/pseuds/lokkanet
Summary: One year after she's been shut away in Imperial Jade Serenity Healing House, her arms semi-permanently chi-blocked to prevent her from bending, Azula contemplates her bleak future.Or: Team Avatar aren't the only ones tasked with making drastic and potentially lethal choices.
Relationships: Aang & Azula (Avatar), Azula & Toph Beifong, Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 140
Collections: Azula: The Ambiguous Redemption, Azula’s Redemption, Best of Avatar: The Last Airbender





	1. Sunset

Azula knows she isn’t considered _right in the head_. That’s how the guards who pace outside her door at Imperial Jade Serenity Healing House phrase it when they speak amongst themselves about her. She doesn’t blame them, not really, for the gossip. The disgraced princess––the bright shining prodigy reduced to a dishevelled bedridden locked-away wreck, her arms rendered useless by Ty Lee’s chi-blocking––it’s quite the conversational topic. Certainly more interesting than anything else happening in her guards’ meagre little lives.

The Avatar, who insists on visiting sometimes, calls her lost. She hates that, sometimes, she agrees with him. She _is_ lost. To have the world in your grasp, and let it crumble through your fingers: it leaves a hollowness inside you which may never be filled.

Zuko––he calls her many things.

“Come on,” Zuko says, gruffly. “You have to take a bite.”

Azula’s brows dip into a measured frown: frustrated, but not furious. “I hate this,” she mumbles, her tone more resigned than spiteful.

“Well, I don’t love it either,” Zuko mumbles. “This is humiliating.”

“ _You_ feel humiliated? Zu-zu, you’re not the one caged like a komodo chicken, unable to lift a finger. The least you can let me do is spoon my own soup into my mouth.”

Zuko’s good eye narrows, and for a moment Azula sees the spectre of their father flash across his face. The resemblance of the new Firelord to the old is undeniable, and makes Azula feel vaguely uncomfortable in her own skin. It is a constant reminder of how far she has fallen, how badly she has failed Ozai. “I’d hardly call this a cage,” he says, sweeping his arm out at their admittedly spacious surroundings. “You’re in Imperial Jade, the best recuperation facility in the Fire Nation, when you _should_ be in a cooler in the Boiling Rock.”

“You are the Fire Lord,” Azula says, shrugging as best as she can. “You can make that happen.” She smiles, crinkling her eyes the faintest bit when she sees Zuko pinch the bridge of his nose. “Ah, but you don’t want to, do you?”

“You electrocuted me!”

“To be fair, I wasn’t _aiming_ for you, Zu-zu. How is Katara, by the way?”

Her brother’s frown deepens. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t. But _you_ do, and you’re my brother, so go ahead. Tell me about your peasant friends.”

She can almost see the wheels in Zuko’s head turning, slow and creaky, as he wonders whether this is some kind of trap. “Katara is fine,” he says finally. “She and Aang are in the Earth Kingdom now, helping King Kuei readjust to his new position. Well, his old position, I suppose.”

“Kuei,” Azula says. “He’s the one with the funny pet, isn’t he? The platypus bear with the deformed bill.”

“I don’t think it ever had a bill. I think he just called it a _bear_.”

“A bear,” Azula says skeptically. “What’s next, ducks instead of turtleducks?”

Zuko’s lip twitches, and for a fleeting moment they aren’t the Fire Lord and his deranged would-be killer. They’re just Zuko and Azula, relics from a time long gone.

Azula knows the value in moments like these. She has been storing them since the day she was first locked up here, one year ago. Of course, they have to come slowly, believably. Zuko is no longer as naïve and trusting as he was two years ago, when even a mere mention of restoring his honour would bring him to his knees. If she suddenly starts simpering and playing with the collection of dolls Iroh has insisted on decorating her shelf with, Zuko may well do away with all niceties and toss her into the Boiling Rock on suspicion of plotting something. But each little joke shared, each brush of eye contact, is one tiny movement closer to freedom. Even Azula can’t be sure of what shape her freedom might take––but anything, anywhere, is better than spending the rest of her life sitting forlornly on a matcha-green silk bed surrounded by serene still-life paintings of lotuses and jasmine vines.

“Please, Zuko,” she says, latching onto the opportunity. “ _Please_ let me eat my own soup. Have someone unblock my chi and let me use my hands.”

Zuko shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Azula,” he says, and the level of sincerity in his voice almost takes her by surprise. “You know I can’t.”

“What, are you afraid I’ll try to assassinate you with a spoon?” Azula scoffs. “What can I do with it, poke your eyes out? Toss hot soup onto your face? One burn scar is quite enough, Brother. We don’t want someone to mistake the Fire Lord for a pesky raccoon fox.”

“You’re insufferable,” Zuko sighs. “And you know that’s not what I’m worried about.”

Azula waves a hand impatiently at Zuko’s clothing. “That’s Grandfather’s dragon-skin robe, isn’t it? Which happens to be fireproof––but of course you knew that. Even if I were inclined to bend at you, which I am certainly not foolish enough to attempt, you wouldn’t be in any danger.” It’s her turn to sigh, calculated at just the right intensity to come across as genuine. “All I want to do is eat my soup in peace, Zu-zu.”

“Don’t call me that,” Zuko says reflexively.

“Fine, I won’t. _If_ you unblock my chi.” The same demand she’s made every day for a whole year. She knows what will happen: Zuko will say no, she’ll sigh theatrically, they’ll bicker, and finally––when Azula gets too hungry to hold out––she will let Zuko feed her dinner. It’s desperately humiliating, but Azula reckons it’s better to feel embarrassed than to starve and become weak. _You are already weak enough_ ––Ozai’s voice fills her mind, unbidden, and she shakes her head to dispel it.

“Please let me use my arms,” she begs again, even though she knows the answer.

She doesn’t expect Zuko to hesitate. His eyes slide around the room before settling on hers. “You look so tired,” he says. “Have you been sleeping?”

Acid bubbles to Azula’s tongue. _Oh, Zu-zu_ , she wants to say. _Do you think I can sleep? You’ve locked me in a cage which reeks of green tea and depression, and given me semi-permanent jelly arms. I have nothing to do except eat soup and stare at Joo Dee dolls collected from Ba Sing Se (does Iroh think I’m four years old?) Oh yes, and let’s not forget all the visits dear Mother pays me at night. You were always her favourite, Zu-zu, so why does she torment_ me _instead?_

She takes a deep breath. “No,” she admits, “I haven’t––” and Zuko’s eyebrow shoots up in surprise. She can almost read his thoughts: Azula always lies, so why is she bothering to answer him honestly now? 

Why _is_ she? Azula can’t quite answer that herself. Telling the truth on occasion does have its merits––does let her build up some trust so that eventually, one day, she can catch Zuko unawares.

Maybe she’s just tired. Restless to her core and exhausted to her bones, and it’s making her act like someone else, someone less poised. Someone less than perfect. 

She has to get out. She has to leave, she has to find some way to be free. She cannot take one more day of this, or she will lose herself and everything she has worked so hard to achieve.

A hand lands gently on her hair, and she nearly shrieks for Ursa to get _off_ before she realises it belongs to Zuko, not her mother. “I’m sorry,” he says, and disturbingly, it sounds like he means it. “I… sometimes, I think I should have taken you with me. When I left.”

“When you were _banished_ , you mean.”

“Yes,” Zuko says mildly. “Banishment was the best thing that could ever have happened to me, although it took me nearly three years to understand that.”

“Hm,” Azula says. “I suppose that’s why you’ve put me here, isn’t it? Banished me to this room, so I can have my own little emotional field trip?”

“That’s not––”

“I suppose it could be worse,” she muses, ignoring him. “I suppose you could _also_ have given me your old hairstyle, and made me look like an egg with a queue.”

Zuko emits an odd bleat, and it takes a moment to realise that he’s _laughing_. It’s been a very long time since she’s seen Zuko laugh. The sight is, frankly, alien.

“Please,” Azula says quietly, standing up. “Zuko, I–– I’m losing myself in here. Please ask Ty Lee to unblock my chi. You can have it blocked again when I’m done eating, I won’t rebel. I just want to feel…” Her voice cracks, just the right amount to feel natural. “Human. For a little while.”

Zuko’s eye widens, and she suppresses a little smile. Hers was the sort of raw, emotional speech her soft-hearted brother cannot possibly withstand. “Wait here,” he says nonsensically, as if she could take a stray step without being swarmed by guards.

When the door shuts behind him, her mind races. What if he does it––what if he finally acquiesces and gives her back her arms? What then? _Perhaps_ , she thinks, _perhaps it isn’t wise to do anything now_. Eat the soup. Stay calm. Earn his trust, just a fraction, so he’ll keep doing it, until one day he doesn’t bother to re-block her arms at all. And then–– and then––

And then what? Maybe she should take a stand now. Maybe that’s better. Ty Lee is quick but weak, a nonbender. And Zuko’s bending has improved––he could _almost_ hold his own during their Agni Kai, and doubtless he’s been practicing every day––but she is still Azula, the youngest Firebending master in the world. Azula, who always has a trick or two up her sleeve.

Zuko may be wearing fireproof garments, but the soft skin of his neck, of his face–– _those_ aren’t fireproof, as Ozai had demonstrated once before.

The door swings open again, and a small, light form follows Zuko into the room. “Ah––Ty Lee,” Azula starts, but stops short when the figure detaches itself from Zuko’s shadow.

“Nope,” Avatar Aang says, grinning brightly. “It’s me!”

“Aang was nearby,” Zuko explains. “So he offered to do it instead.”

Azula’s eyes harden. Zuko and Ty Lee, she can take. But Zuko and the Avatar? She’s heard what the latter did to her father––how he’d refused Ozai an honourable death, and left him an empty shell. The thought of a similar fate befalling her frightens her more than she cares to admit. “Nearby?” she snipes. “How convenient. You’re a terrible liar, Zu-zu. We both know the _real_ reason you’ve brought the Avatar with you is so that you can hide behind him in case I have an _episode_.”

_No, Azula! Don’t taunt him, not when you’re so close._

“Which I won’t,” Azula adds hurriedly. “I promise.” For once, it’s an oath she doesn’t mean to break.

“You know, Zuko didn’t know my name until the war was almost over,” the Avatar says, in an awkward attempt to cut through the thin wire of tension remaining between them. “One day he pulled aside Katara and asked whether we’d be meeting up with Aang later on, because she kept mentioning him. Apparently, it never occurred to him that the Avatar has a _name_.”

Zuko rubs his neck, looking sheepish. Azula, who in fact had not connected the name Aang to the Avatar until well _after_ the Fire Nation’s defeat, schools her face into neutrality in an effort to hide her own embarrassment. “Enough small talk,” she says. “Unblock my chi, Avatar, before my soup gets stone cold.”

The Avatar crosses his arms. “Zuko or I can just heat it up for you if it does,” he says. “There’s something I need to make sure of beforehand.” Turning toward the door, he calls out: “Toph!”

Azula’s jaw drops. She had suspected the Avatar’s presence;she knows he tends to accompany Zuko on visits, _just in case_. But the tiny Earthbending prodigy, the blind girl who could probably single-handedly flatten an army to the ground? That’s… unexpected.

_Zuko is a step ahead of you,_ the voice in her head says. _He knew you’d ask. Of course he knew. And his soft little heart can’t take it anymore, so he’s going to_ agree. _But he’s going to make sure you can’t try anything, not now._

The door slams open, and Toph’s stocky little silhouette stands on the threshold. “The Melonlord has arrived!” she announces, planting her fists onto her hips. “Hey, Twinkletoes. Honour Man, ” she adds, nodding at the Avatar and Zuko respectively.

“Honour Man?” Azula chokes, her haughty façade slipping for just a moment. This is _so_ much better than Zu-zu. 

Zuko’s unburnt cheek flushes nearly as red as his scar. “I’m the Fire Lord, you know,” he grumbles to Toph.

“Are we doing introductions?” Toph asks cheerfully. “Because I’m Toph. Just in case you didn’t know, like how you didn’t know _Aang’s_ name until––”

“Toph, enough,” Zuko groans. Azula casts an appreciative glance toward Toph. She’d have to reassess her previous judgment of the little Earthbender. After all, despite the dirt on her feet and her alarming tendency to pick her nose, Toph is a Bei Fong––a _noble_ , although hardly one on Azula’s level.

“Fine, fine,” Toph says, crossing over to stand right next to Azula. “You want me to tell you whether Princess Psycho was lying when she said she wouldn’t pull any shit, right?”

The Avatar sticks his lip out in a childish pout. “Language, Toph.”

Toph rolls her eyes, and Azula absently finds herself wondering how she even knows to do that. Can Toph feel others’ eyes roll? That kind of power, the ability to sense the slightest change in one’s environment… _I wonder if I can do that with firebending,_ Azula thinks. 

Then the full impact of Toph’s question hits her, and she frowns. “You don’t trust me, Zu-zu?”

“No,” Zuko says simply, and honestly––Azula can’t really argue.

Toph huffs out a breath. “Princess Psycho––”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Sorry, is Unhinged Lightning Lady better?”

“Actually, yes,” Azula says, preening a little. _Lightning Lady._ It’s got a nice ring to it, really. If––when––she finally takes the nation’s reins from her incompetent brother, maybe she’ll make _that_ her official title. 

Toph snorts. “Whatever. She’s harder to read than most people, probably because she’s been lying to herself for basically her whole life.”

Azula’s jaw clenches. “You little––”

“But,” Toph barrels on, “I’m pretty sure she won’t do anything. I mean, she’s outnumbered three-to-one. And she hasn’t practiced any bending for the last year. Sorry, Crazy Eyes, but you’re _weak_.” Ignoring Azula’s irate spluttering, she turns in the Avatar’s direction to add, “I don’t need to sense her heartbeat to tell you that she’s not dumb enough to risk a long jail sentence for an attack she _knows_ is bound to fail. So… yeah, go ahead and unblock her chi.”

Azula hates Toph Bei Fong. Despises her, loathes her with every fibre of her being. If she could shoot fire from her eyes, Toph would be a smouldering pile of cinders right now. Because Toph––Toph is _right_. Toph has summed up Azula’s vile, soul-sucking situation in one fell swoop. Zuko and the Avatar were bad enough. Zuko, the Avatar, _and_ Toph? Azula doesn’t have a chance.

The original plan, then. Play nice for as long as it takes until Zuko is comfortable visiting her without an entourage. Until the fireproof garments come off.

_And then…_

“Okay, is everybody ready?” the Avatar asks, taking Toph’s place at Azula’s side. When he bends down to her level, Azula shifts uncomfortably. She’s never actually looked into his eyes before, and there’s something intensely unnerving about them. He’s only a child, but his eyes are ancient. From deep in their grey recesses shines a light she’d call… cosmic, were she spiritual in the least.

“You have so much potential,” he says solemnly, and for a moment Azula swears his voice is deeper, older, laced with Fire Nation cadences. “Don’t throw it away, please.”

Azula opens her mouth, but has no time to form words before she feels a series of light presses on her arm.

She _feels_ them. 

Shakily, she stands and lifts one arm forward––something she hasn’t done for a year––and a small flame, a tiny wisp of candlelight, winks into existence on her finger. Zuko starts to step forward, but the Avatar holds up a hand.

“It’s okay, Zuko,” he says softly. “She won’t try anything.”

And indeed she won’t. Azula stares at the flame, abject horror curling up her stomach and into her throat. She had waited so long for this moment, had dreamed of it every day and every night for a year. Blue flame pouring from her hands, filling the room with glowing beauty and heat and _life._

But the fire which flickers half-heartedly on her finger isn’t blue. It isn’t even orange. It’s _red_ , the coolest and weakest sort a Firebender can produce. Even toddlers produce hotter flames than the one in Azula’s hand.

A _toddler_ could best her. If the only person standing between her and freedom were Mai’s fat little two-year-old brother, who had made his first flame just a few weeks ago, she would _still_ lose. Her failure is complete. She lets out a strangled sob and falls back onto the bed, burying her face in her knees.

There is a creak, and she can feel a weight settle next to her on the bed. Zuko’s arm wraps around her shoulders, and she doesn’t have the strength to fight it off. “You’re tired and frail,” he says pityingly. “You haven’t done any bending for a long time. Come on, eat your soup.” He pulls away from her, and Azula slowly raises her head. The scent of spicy broth wafts toward her as Zuko hands her the freshly-heated bowl and a ceramic spoon. By all rights, she shouldn’t want to eat; she shouldn’t be _able_ to eat, not when her fire is gone. Yet as if on cue, her stomach grumbles––so, grudgingly, she accepts the proffered dish. _Perhaps eating will help_ , she thinks. _I’ll try again, after I eat._

“Azula.”

“What now?” she snaps, but when she looks up her heart lurches. Standing next to Toph in the corner of the room, her eyes cold and mournful, is Ursa.

_No. No, no, no, NO. Not now, please._

“Azula, you can’t ignore me,” Ursa says, smiling serenely. “You can’t close your eyes and pretend I’m not here.”

“Mother,” Azula breathes. There’s a crash, and she’s dimly aware that the soup bowl has slid out from between her hands and shattered itself on the floor.

“Oh no,” Zuko’s voice says in the background, but Azula’s eyes and thoughts are elsewhere.

Ursa crosses the room, but stops short a few feet away from Azula. “My poor daughter,” she says, clicking her tongue. “I always told you not to push yourself so hard, or you’d snap.”

“I haven’t snapped!” Azula half-shrieks, leaping off the bed.

“I’m not so sure,” Toph’s voice says drily.

“Shut up, peasant!” Azula’s thoughts flow into each other, forming a jumbled sludge. The room swells and contracts like a heartbeat, its inhabitants rolling into a blur. Only one constant remains: Ursa, whose face grows to fill all the space before Azula’s eyes.

“If you think about it,” Ursa says placidly, “you are half-peasant too, Azula darling. Your grandfather–– _my_ father––was a farmer. An honourable job.”

“Don’t talk to me about honour!” Azula screeches. “You and your son––you’re both the same. Always prattling on about honour, even when being honourable will _ruin_ you. And you want me to be just like you!”

“Once, perhaps,” Ursa says sadly. “But I gave up that hope a very long time ago. You’re a monster, Azula.”

“Not a monster,” Azula hisses, feeling her mouth stretch into a ferocious parody of a grin. “Just pragmatic. Like Father.”

“Where did his pragmatism take him?” Ursa rejoinders. “Locked into a cell, stripped of everything he prided himself on?”

“I’ll get him out,” Azula whispers. “One day. Just you watch, I’ll make him proud again.”

“He was never proud of you!” Ursa’s voice rings through the room and enters Azula’s head in a rain of nails. “Do you think he cared about you, Azula? Do you think he _cares_ where you are right now? You failed him, my love, just as you failed me.”

“Azula!” another voice says, but it’s so faint she cannot make out its owner. “Zuko, I need to get close to her, so I can help!”

“I know about your plan,” Ursa says, her lips contorting and bloating grotesquely before they detach from the rest of her face and float toward Azula. “You think my son will fall for it? You think he’ll ever let his guard down around you?”

“I––”

“Zuko knows you’re a monster,” Ursa says coolly. “I made sure of that.”

And then, as suddenly as she appeared, she is gone. The room tilts and swirls, and Azula falls off the bed, landing in something wet and lukewarm.

“Azula,” Zuko exclaims, hoisting her onto her feet. “What happened?”

Azula’s breaths come shallow and short as she looks wildly about the room. There is no sign of Ursa––no sign she ever _was_ there. Toph and the Avatar flank Zuko, poised and ready to strike if need be.

_Zuko knows you’re a monster._

“I’ll have a fresh bowl sent up,” Zuko says, and Azula can _hear_ the mockery dripping from his voice. “This is my fault. It’s still too early in your treatment…”

_I made sure of it._

It’ll always be too early in her treatment. Suddenly Azula sees, with horrible clarity, the future which rolls out before her: a lifetime stuck in Imperial Jade Serenity Healing House. She’ll grow old here, surrounded by dusty dolls and flower paintings. Zuko will visit every day, feeding her soup until she no longer remembers a time when her arms weren’t useless jelly. The Avatar will come on occasion, spewing platitudes about how much _potential_ she has: potential which will stay potential forever, locked up and withering just like her. Life will pass her little bubble by. But Ursa–– Ursa will be there, standing in the corner or whispering into her ear at night, reminding her of how far she has fallen.

Her choice is clear. There is only one path to take. She twists out from Zuko’s grasp and darts to the single window in the room, positioning herself at the centre of the shrinking shaft of evening sunlight which streams in. Even a little bit of dying light will help power her feeble bending. At this point, anything will help.

Her feet and ankles freeze in place––Toph has Earthbent restraints around them. The Avatar moves toward her, his fingers out, ready to re-block her chi. 

Azula smiles serenely, and she can feel her face shift into Ursa’s. “Goodbye, Mother,” she says, jubilantly, and a flaming dagger ignites in her hand.

Toph, sensing the heat, instinctively shields the Avatar. But Zuko’s eye springs wide open as Azula’s plan finally dawns on him. “No!” he screams, lunging forward.

Too late. In a swift, graceful motion, Azula lifts her arm one last time.

And, for a split second––right before it plunges into her chest––her flame glows bright blue.


	2. Phoenix

Azula wakes up in the Palace. 

As she takes in her surroundings––the rich red cloth to her front, the wide metal door behind her, the fragrance of smoke, thick and heady––memories come rushing back to her. The narrow gap between the door and the curtains which lead into the Firelord’s throne room had been her favourite hiding spot as a child. Here she could conceal herself and listen into every meeting she otherwise would have been barred from attending. Here she could gather information on the innermost workings of the Fire Nation’s upper echelons, filing it away for future leverage.

After Ozai had taken the throne, he’d removed the thousand-year-old curtains and discarded them in a storage room. _An assassin could easily hide behind it,_ he’d told her. _Our predecessors were powerful, but not always wise._ Azulon’s name hung in the air, unspoken.

Azula hadn’t minded. The curtains were no longer useful to her anyway––her father invited her to every one of his meetings, even the ones Crown Prince Zuko wasn’t allowed into. Ozai had enjoyed parading his glittering little daughter, so bright and precocious, before his generals and ministers. And Azula had never felt so loved as she did in those moments when he turned to her, seated at his right hand, and asked her opinion.

Firelord Azulon’s voice rings out, low and clear. “…the punishment must fit the crime.”

Azula draws in a sharp breath, stumbling back as the memory of the night her mother disappeared unfurls in her mind. The flames around the throne blaze so high that the glow is visible even through the many layers of silk which screen the figures of the Firelord and his son from her view. Azulon’s next words are lost to her in the roar of fire––but she remembers, nonetheless.

She turns and places a hand on the door to push it open, but finds herself sinking through instead, falling until she lands silently next to a pair of feet she recognises as her own. Azula looks up, startled, from her position on the dark red carpet leading up to Zuko’s bed, and confirms that she is indeed looking at herself. All of eight years old, with a round little face and round eyes sparkling with something which could be easily mistaken for childlike wonder by an ignorant observer. “Dad’s gonna kill you,” her past self sings, smiling when Zuko’s eyes widen comically. “Really, he is.”

“Ha _ha_ , Azula. Nice try,” her brother says, trying desperately to sound like he doesn’t believe her.

“Fine, don’t believe me, but I heard everything. Grandfather said Dad’s punishment should fit his crime…”

Azula smiles fondly at the little girl, so young yet so quick-witted––then freezes, stock still, as a figure materialises in the corner of the room.

“Young lady,” Ursa says, “we need to have a talk.”

She _remembers_ this, too. How Ursa had hauled her so ignominiously out of Zuko’s room and interrogated her: how her mother’s face had paled at the thought of her precious son being harmed, and she’d bolted out of the room without a second glance at Azula. She turns toward her younger self, half-wondering whether she can warn her to run before Ursa grabs her––but then she feels a pressure around her own wrist.

“Come with me,” Ursa orders. Azula knows she should twist from Ursa’s grasp, knows she should run––but her mother’s eyes elongate, twisting around Azula’s neck and cinching tightly. Azula scrabbles desperately at the slimy ties, but cannot break them. She howls, wild and desperate, but neither Zuko nor the little girl by his bed turn to help her as Ursa drags her down the darkened corridor and slams her up against a wall.

“You really think the Fire Lord wanted to kill his direct heir?”

“Wh–what?” Azula does not remember the conversation going this way. The Ursa in her memories had been pale, struck weak by the thought of her son’s demise. _This_ Ursa directs her hollow eye sockets at Azula’s face and grins ferociously, displaying very white and large teeth.

“Azulon was many things, but never a fool. To ask for the murder of one future Crown Prince, so soon after the death of another? It would be nothing short of madness.”

“But,” Azula says, hating how small, how _weak_ , her voice sounds. “I overheard him––back in the throne room––”

Ursa laughs. “And you were so eager to gloat to your brother that you didn’t bother to stay for the _rest_ of the conversation. Azulon did not order the death of Prince Zuko, daughter.”

Azula squeezes her eyes shut. The pressure around her neck releases, and she hits the floor with a heavy thud. She could get to her feet, could blast Ursa’s empty laughing face into oblivion––but her mother’s next words pin her down into darkness. 

“He told your father to kill _you_.”

For the second time in a short window, Azula wakes up in a cold sweat.

A baboon’s face looms over her, its brow furrowed. “ _Will_ you stop doing that?” it demands, in a distinctively south-central Earth Kingdom accent. “You’ve been squealing like a speared boarcupine ever since you materialised here.”

Azula’s fingers twitch, but she restrains herself from grabbing the creature’s neck. First, she will get the information she wants. _Then_ she will have her revenge. Nobody, least of all a monkey clad in Air Nomad robes, will call her a _boarcupine_ and get away with it.

“Here?” she croaks, propping herself up and wincing at the pain which shoots through her ribs. “Where is _here_?” The landscape around her looks like nothing she has seen in the Fire Nation: a sea of stunted trees and dim greenish-gold wetness. She and the baboon are on a little hill of rock, under a wooden frame which vaguely resembles a Northern Earth Kingdom shrine. And the sun is nowhere to be seen. There is something in the pervasive damp which makes Azula feel deeply wrong, as if she is being extinguished from within. 

The baboon sweeps one arm out, gesturing toward their surroundings. “The Sacred Swamp, of course,” it says, in a tone one might use with a very small and very irritating child.

“ _Sacred_ and _swamp_ are two words which will never go together,” Azula mutters, staggering to her feet. “Now, prepare to meet your doom!” She cups one hand and draws in a draught of air, summoning her inner fire. The sooner she can set this accursed place ablaze and leave, the better.

But her palm is bare and empty, and the pulsing dark gold glow in the air remains the only light source around.

Behind her, the baboon scoffs. “So predictable, humans. You land in the Spirit World, and what’s the first thing you all attempt to do? Bend.” It pauses. “Well, there _was_ one who immediately asked where the bathroom is…”

“ _Attempt_ to bend?” Azula hisses, before the full import of the baboon’s statement hits her. “Wait. Did you say the _Spirit World_?”

But when she turns around, her baboon companion has disappeared.

And in his place stands a figure straight from her childhood nightmares.

* * *

It had taken Aang almost half a _kè_ to quiet Zuko’s anguished yells after Azula’s display. _Really_ , Toph thinks as she listens to Sparky try and catch his breath, _even a blind person can see the family resemblance between the Firelord and his nutty sister_. Drama queens, the both of them. Maybe it’s hereditary. Maybe Ozai had dabbled in community theatre in his spare time, when he hadn’t been ordering bloody conquests and traumatising his children.

“Hey,” Toph says. Neither the Avatar nor the Firelord redirect their attention toward her, so she stamps one foot in frustration, lowering the level of the floor by a handspan and causing both boys to wobble on their feet. “HEY! Stop wailing and listen up, will you?”

“Azula,” Zuko chokes. “She––”

“Isn’t dead.”

Aang stares incredulously. “Toph, she stabbed herself in the chest! _With fire_!”

“Exactly!” Toph jabs a finger in the air. “So you’d expect a body, wouldn’t you? Or at the very least, a pile of ashes lying around somewhere. But the weight on the floor––it’s changed. It’s lighter, like there’s a whole person missing.”

“She’s right,” Zuko says suddenly. “There’s nothing left, not even soot. And I’ve _seen_ immolated people before. This isn’t how…” His voice is suddenly very quiet and sad. Toph wonders for a moment whether she should pat him on the shoulder or something, but pushes the thought aside. Comforting people has always been more Twinkletoes’ area, anyway.

“She must have escaped,” Zuko continues, his footsteps moving toward the outer wall of the room. “But how? The window is shut, and nothing is melted or burnt here.”

“I personally checked every inch of the floor and walls for weak spots and cracks before you moved her in,” Toph says. “If she’d wanted to get out of here without using the door––and she definitely didn’t move that way––she’d need an Earthbender to help her. Wait, maybe there’s a Dai Li agent in the building somewhere?”

“She sent the Dai Li away before our last Agni Kai,” Zuko says quietly. “The Earth King managed to wrest the full roster of agents from Long Feng, and they’re all accounted for. In… one way or another.” His tone warns Toph away from prying into the exact meaning of that last sentence.

“What if she didn’t _mean_ to escape?” Aang suddenly pipes up.

Toph snorts. “Not everything is some kind of funky Airbender riddle. You either escape or you don’t.”

“No, listen,” Aang insists. “I had a thought. It’s pretty far-fetched, but…”

“Spit it out, Twinkletoes!”

“The Spirit World,” Aang blurts. “If she’s not dead, and she hasn’t found a miraculous escape route… maybe she’s in the Spirit World?”

“I thought only the Avatar could enter that place,” Zuko says.

“Maybe his descendants can, too. Avatar Roku was your great-grandfather, wasn’t he? Which makes him Azula’s great-grandfather, too. Because you two are siblings. Unless Ozai had an affair with someone _else_ , which would make Azula your _half_ -sister, and her mother––”

“Great,” Toph says, cutting off Aang’s ramble before it can progress further. “The question is, are we gonna leave her there? In the… Spirit World?”

Toph can feel Aang’s shudder. “The Spirit World isn’t a great place for anyone to stay too long, especially someone as–– someone like her. Also, we don’t even know if she’s even there! Whenever I’ve visited, I left my body here, but hers is just… _gone_.”

“It’s the best lead we have right now,” Toph says, shrugging. “The body thing is pretty weird, but anyplace called the _Spirit_ World is probably a little wackadoodle anyway.”

“Okay,” Aang says. “That’s it, I guess. I’ll have to go and try to find her.” 

“No,” Zuko says quickly, rough-voiced. “You’re needed here, Avatar. The war is over, but there are so many more battles to be fought. This morning weren’t you telling me about a letter you received from the Earth King, about discontent in the Lower Ring of Ba Sing Se?”

“Yes, but––”

“I’ll go,” Zuko continues. “Azula is my sister. _My_ responsibility. I stood by and let her do this. Now it’s up to me to fix it. You said I would be able to travel to the Spirit World, didn’t you? Since I’m descended from Avatar Roku.”

“That’s just a guess! And Zuko, you’re the _Firelord_! You’re needed here too!”

“My uncle can take over while I’m gone, but nobody can fill your shoes, Aang.”

“Wh––what if you don’t come back?” Aang’s voice wavers just a bit.

Toph can hear Zuko suck in a deep breath. “The world needs you more than it needs me,” he says softly.

_Drama queen,_ Toph thinks again, shaking her head. She crosses to where she can feel Zuko’s heartbeat and throws a punch in the vague direction of his shoulder, smiling in satisfaction when she hears him yelp. “I’m coming too,” she says. “I’ll be Sparky’s bodyguard. He still owes me that life-changing field trip. Besides, if I’m in the Spirit World, my parents can’t keep bothering me about dressing like a _lady_.”

“You two don’t even know how to get there!” Aang splutters. “And bending is––”

“I’ve watched you do it,” Zuko interrupts. “Once, I kidnapped your body and carried you through a blizzard while you were in the Spirit World. Though I guess you wouldn’t exactly remember that…”

“Not reassuring,” Aang mumbles, but protests no further.

Zuko closes his hand around Toph’s wrist and sits, crossing his legs into a lotus position. “Close your eyes,” he says.

“Doesn’t make a difference to me,” Toph grumbles, but follows suit anyway. “Now what?”

But Zuko doesn’t reply. Toph hears his breathing even out, and resists the urge to squirm in place. _I hate meditation,_ she thinks. The Firelord’s hand is hot on her skin, reminding Toph of the time she put her hand too close to a burning candle when she was still a small child tentatively feeling her way through the world.

Her nose twitches. She _really_ has to sneeze. Probably all the dust she can feel gathered in the corners and on the furniture. Absently, Toph wonders what the room looks like. Knowing Azula, she’s probably filled her shelves with the severed heads of her enemies or something.

“Zuko?” she whispers, but gets no response. “Aang?”

The heat on her hand grows into a little flame, and it’s her turn to yelp. “Zuko, let go!” she half-shrieks. “You’re burning me!”

Dead quiet. No––not quiet, not quite. A hum so low that only Toph’s super-hearing could possibly pick it up fills the room from every direction, leaking from the stone walls and rising from the stone floor.

The flame fans, expands, consumes Toph and her surroundings in a burst of brilliant sparkling pain. And she is falling, falling…

The ground slams upward into her. A lesser being than Toph Beifong would have sustained major injuries––two broken bones, at the very least––but Toph is only momentarily jarred. Eyes still closed, she shakily gets to her feet and finally manages to shake Zuko’s hand off her arm.

“Sparky?” she whispers. “You good?”

There is no answer. Toph listens for his heartbeat, for his presence on the ground, and receives––nothing. The earth lies dead beneath her. _‘Bending is…’_ Aang had started to say about the Spirit World, and Toph’s stomach curls inward as she realises how that sentence ends. Never before has she experienced the sensation of being so… so _blind_. Even before she had crawled into the badgermoles’ cave at the age of six, she had been able to feel _something_ from the earth below her hands and feet. She gasps sharply, her eyes fluttering open––and is immediately overwhelmed.

There is light around her. Light, and shapes, and a crumpled form on the ground which Toph instinctively understands to be Zuko, even though she has never really set eyes on him before.

She can see. 

Toph can’t bend––but she can _see_.

* * *

Azula knows who Koh is. Everybody in the Three Nations, even those who don’t believe in the Spirit World (and Azula had counted herself in that category up until a _kè_ ago), knows about Koh the Face-stealer. His glistening many-legged black-and-white visage has crawled into countless children’s dreams. Water Tribe and Fire Nation alike are united in the screams of their youngest citizens as they awake from a nightmare about Koh, their hands pressed frantically into their cheeks, searching for reassurance that their faces have not been lost to the monstrous creature.

Azula had only screamed once, after the very first Koh dream she’d had as a young child. Ursa had come running, and for a scant _shí_ Azula had lain in her mother’s soft arms, lulled to sleep by her _false_ voice and _false_ warmth. The next day, at breakfast, her father had fixed upon her a look of such vitriolic disgust that Azula had nearly vomited, her belly pierced by shame. After that, whenever Koh crept into her mind at night, she had resolutely clamped her mouth shut, allowing herself only the quietest whimpers into her pillow. Zuko, of course, had shrieked for Ursa until he was _nine_ , the weak little duckling.

“You are not the Avatar,” Koh says, coiling up and regarding Azula with terribly serene eyes. “And yet you look… familiar.”

Azula schools her face into perfect neutrality. It comes easily to her, a talent born from a lifetime spent at the knees of a father who would not hesitate to burn her for the smallest show of disrespect. “Perhaps you have had nightmares about me,” she says conversationally.

Koh’s face flips to that of a fat laughing Air Nomad’s. “Droll,” he murmurs. “You’re lucky you met me. Another spirit might do something… terrible, upon hearing a remark like that.”

“So I _am_ in the Spirit World,” Azula says, ignoring the thinly veiled threat. “I thought only the Avatar could travel here.”

Koh lifts his forelegs in a crude parody of a shrug, and his face morphs into one with dark skin and high cheekbones––a Si Wong sandbender, perhaps––frozen into a permanent expression of surprise. “The Avatar is not so singular a spirit as the world makes him out to be.”

“The Avatar is a spirit?” Azula breathes. “That’s why he didn’t die, when I shot him?”

“He did not die because you did not kill him,” Koh says simply, his face whirring into another iteration: this time a wide-faced woman with tattoos under her chin. “He is half-Spirit, yes, but he is half-mortal too. Tell me, why did you shoot him?”

“He stole my destiny,” Azula says, carefully suppressing a snarl. “He snatched everything I have fought for and gave it to my–– to someone who did not deserve it.”

“Ah,” Koh purrs, “I recognise you now, Fire Princess.” His face shifts back to stark white. “What a distinctive face you have. Such exquisite expressions you can make, if you so choose. It comes from your mother, you know. She was a very talented actress.”

“My mother was never an actress,” Azula says slowly, but her mind is racing. Koh speaks as if… as if he _knows_ who her mother is––as if he has _seen_ her. He’s bluffing, of course. It is imperative she steer the conversation away from these dangerous waters. Besides, an idea has entered her head, half-formed but enough to ignite a spark within her. “If the Avatar is half-Spirit, he can never truly die, can he? He’ll just be reborn. Is there a way to prevent that?”

“You can kill him in the Avatar State,” Koh says, swapping his face to a Water Tribe woman’s. “Or you can ask Vaatu.”

“Vaatu?” Azula scans her memory for where she might have heard the name before, but comes up blank.

“You’ve never heard of Raava and Vaatu?” Koh sighs, “My, my, the Fire Nation is lagging behind on its spiritual education. Raava is the spirit of order, Princess. She lives within the Avatar. And Vaatu… why, Vaatu is the ruler of chaos, her polar opposite. Her beginning… and her end.”

_Her end. The end of the Avatar. The end of my shame._ Azula dips her head, narrowly stopping herself from smiling. If she could contact Vaatu––if she could find a way to use the spirit of chaos to grind the Avatar into dust permanently––the weakness would melt and flow from her. She could look her father in the eye once more, and be able to proclaim: _I am strong. I am not Zuko_.

“But,” Koh continues, “enough philosophy. I believe there is someone who would like to meet you.” Out of the corner of her eye Azula sees his face change again, shuffling between genders and nations in a dizzying blur until he settles on what he is looking for. “I believe you two are acquainted?”

Azula looks up.

And from Koh’s nauseating sow-bug body, the face of Ursa smiles calmly back at her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used traditional Chinese units instead of minutes and hours. It just felt more accurate.
> 
> kè: roughly 15 minutes
> 
> shí: roughly 2 hours
> 
> Why are their bodies in the Spirit World too, instead of being left behind as shells in the mortal world?
> 
> I plan to explain a little better later, but I think the reason Aang's body stayed in the mortal world in the show is because he was fully alive during all of his visits to the Spirit World––something which I believe is impossible for a non-Avatar person to achieve. If I remember correctly, Iroh eventually crosses over to the Spirit World, too, but there's no mention of his body lying somewhere in the Fire Nation waiting for his spirit to return. So it makes sense, I think, for people like Azula, Zuko, and Toph to really vanish when they cross over.
> 
> I have read some of the comics, including The Search, and I certainly was partially inspired by it when I was thinking about Ursa––but I'm also diverging pretty heavily from that storyline. I've also watched Legend of Korra, years ago, and I'm incorporating a bit of lore from it, but this story will probably fork out from that too.

**Author's Note:**

> From the time I first watched Avatar: The Last Airbender at the age of fourteen, I've always felt a painful connection to Azula. I, too, have struggled with mental illness and intense pressure to excel. I, too, have been brought to my knees as my own reality crumbled around me.
> 
> She's a fascinating character, and I'm determined to do her justice here.
> 
> Which, thankfully, does not involve killing her in the first chapter itself.


End file.
